Psychologists and communication researchers arestudying how Facebook so successfully lures us in.

BY LEA WINERMAN • Monitor staffIn October, Facebook crossed the 1 billion-user mark. More than 500 million of those users log on to the site very day. But many of those same millions bemoanFacebook as a time-suck, tempting us to fritter away hoursreading the minutiae of high-school classmates’ lives or playingonline Scrabble when we could be spending that time moreproductively on work, schoolwork or real face time with familyand friends.

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In a 2012 review article in Personality and Individual Differences
called “Why Do People Use Facebook?” Boston University

psychologist Stefan Hofmann, PhD, broke down the site’s
appeal into two areas: the need to belong and the need for self-presentation. Facebook, Hofmann says, satisfies both of those
basic needs.

When it comes to belonging, Facebook use has a mixed
reputation. Some people think that the site’s ability to keep
us in daily contact with far-flung friends and family must be
a boon for interpersonal connection. But an equally plausible
view is that spending so much time interacting with the digital
versions of our friends leaves us lonely and starved for real-world contact.

So, which of these views is right? As it turns out, both may
contain some truth, according to research by psychologist
Kennon Sheldon, PhD, of the University of Missouri. In a
2011 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, Sheldon and his colleagues asked more than 1,000
college students about the intensity of their Facebook use.
They also tested the students on their levels of connection and
disconnection, with a scale that asked questions about how
often they “felt lonely” or “felt close and connected with other
people who are important” to them.

Paradoxically, the researchers found that spending a lot
of time on Facebook correlated with both high levels of
feeling connected to other people and with high levels of
disconnection.

They theorize this is the case because two different processes
motivate Facebook use: People who are lonely and disconnected
spend time on Facebook to cope with their loneliness. But
people who aren’t lonely also spend time on Facebook, and for
them the site helps maintain social connections, leading them to
spend even more time there.

In Sheldon’s model, Facebook does boost people’s feelings
of connection. “But if you’re a chronically lonely person, you
might go on and feel a little lift, but the chronic loneliness is
unchanged,” Sheldon says. “It’s almost like an addiction that